Some might be quick to point out that women have the "right" to ogle men (finally!) as some sort of payback for hundreds (thousands?) of years of male-dominated objectification of women in art and entertainment, not to mention real life. But is this tit-for-tat (yes, "tit"), vindictive reverse-sexism really the sort we want to perpetuate?

But let's at least separate our personal enjoyment of this film (and others like it) from the related, larger claims we make about gender and society, and about popular culture and political correctness.

But sex sells -- both in the film's fictional Tampa strip club and in real-life movie theaters across the country. And, perhaps despite ourselves, we're buying.

Having established that, then we can consider the persuasive arguments that, for example, watching a film that relies upon sexist tropes doesn't necessarily make us sexist or bad people. Or that many of the canonical works of art and entertainment of our time -- a category to which Magic Mike certainly doesn't belong, sorry -- rely upon ingrained, decidedly un-PC structures of sexism (traditional sexism in Faulkner, anyone?), and that, while we are aware of this, it shouldn't necessarily preclude our appreciating the merits of a particular work.